


I'll be here (if you'll have me)

by unfortunatecircumstance



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Fluff and Humor, Lena Luthor Finds Out Kara Danvers is Supergirl, One Shot, pam from HR is tired, she doesnt even have an office anymore cut her some slack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:15:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25774978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unfortunatecircumstance/pseuds/unfortunatecircumstance
Summary: AU where the first words your soulmate say to you appear on your body at 18, but that's not important because Lena's just moved to National City for a fresh start and the fumbly blonde that just said her words, broke in by ripping the Luthor grade locks right out of her door.It's not Kara's fault, she thought it was unlocked.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 82
Kudos: 1364





	I'll be here (if you'll have me)

**Author's Note:**

> is the timeline a little wack? yea. that's all i have no excuses.
> 
> if you make it past the backstory it's worth it i promise

_Who's Supergirl? Never heard of her._

The words that appear scrawled across the left side of Lena's abdomen on the morning of her 18th birthday send her heart flying straight into her throat. Lex is just a _little_ too invested in the comings and goings of Superman, and a soulmark heading another Super, with a capital S, bodes well for exactly no one. So when Lex barges into her room on her visit back to Metropolis, eyes gleaming with a rare boyish joy, and demands to see her soulmark, she gathers just enough courage to level her eyes and calm her racing heart.

"It says _Good morning_ , just like half the population. And it's in a place brothers aren't allowed to see, even if I'm adopted. Now I believe I was promised a birthday breakfast?"

Lex accepts her explanation with little disappointment, as greetings are, in fact, the most common soul marks around. She informs Lillian of the same lie with a detached tone, to which her adoptive mother comments, "I wouldn't have expected anything more from you, dear". The jab alone nearly causes Lena to expose her real mark, but something in her cautions strongly against it. Lillian's never mentioned her own soulmark, leaving a small, spiteful part of herself to theorize that she doesn't have one. Lex has a blocky _I_ _love you, Lex!_ proudly displayed on his wrist, which she truly doesn't know what to make of.

 _Bye-bye bikinis for me, I guess._ It's not like she has many friends that would question it. The next time she sees Andrea, she reveals her secret in hushed tones and solemnly swears her to secrecy. Fortunately for her, the brunette understands the gravity of the situation and doesn't bring it up again.

Jack doesn't ask about her soul mark and she doesn't ask about his. It works better for everyone that way. 

Years pass, the secret written across her stomach fades to the back of her mind, and she graduates from MIT with honours. She's almost convinced that she had overreacted to the whole thing, that her soulmate would be referencing some Halloween costume or popular anecdote of the time. But her next return to Metropolis reveals an obsessed Lex, bordering on insanity. She continues to keep her mouth shut. 

Then Lex tries to kill Superman and her world falls apart. 

Amidst her struggle to redeem the Luthor name, a new superhero debuts, single-handedly saving a plane full of passengers. She catches sight of a CatCo press release naming this stranger 'Supergirl', and the decades-old knot in her stomach unravels into a horror that seeps into her very bones. Supergirl exists. If there were any time for her to meet her soulmate, it would be now. Word of Supergirl spreads like wildfire back to Metropolis, reigniting the controversy around Lex's trial. Lena does the only thing she can think of.

She runs.

She moves to National City, and tells herself it's to share her home with a Kryptonian, and not because the closer she is to Supergirl, the lower her chances would be of someone saying her words. CatCo Worldwide Media does a good job of keeping citizens informed, and Supergirl's heroics are sprawled across billboards and headlining newscasts. There's not a single person in National City that doesn't know of the heroine, and that's the one thing Lena can count on.

There's no way she's saddling some fate-designated cilivian with her baggage while the dust around Lex's trial has barely settled. Keeping her distance from her soulmate is the best option. Still, she takes a night in her new apartment to get blackout drunk and mourn what could have been.

The next morning's hangover dulls her senses just enough to not notice the furious jiggling of her locked door handle until it's far too late. She'd drawn the blackout curtains the night before, and is debating making a run for the gun strapped under her kitchen counter when the screech of ripping metal fills her apartment. _Holy crap._ The door swings open, hallway light spilling into the room. A figure stands silhouetted in the doorway, handle still in her grasp. Lena stands, frozen, as the figure steps in and trails her fingers along the wall, searching for something. 

_Did Lex send someone?_

No, he wouldn't make it this obvious. A rival company? Lex's enemies? Who would know her location? She made sure not to tell anyone her address, and signed the lease under an alias. The apartment was temporary, anyways, just until she found somewhere safer to stay. And then it dawns on her. She'd installed new locks the second she moved in, locks strong enough to withstand 500 pounds of force. She knows in an instant who this intruder is.

_Supergirl's here to kill me._

The lights flicker on at the same moment Lena decides to speak, so she stares into piercing blue eyes and speaks the only truth that makes sense. 

\----------

Kara Danvers never thought she'd get a soul mark.

She'd learned about the human concept of soul marks not long after she crash landed, when she spotted a greeting winding around the nape of Eliza'a neck. Her adoptive mother had explained what the words meant, but also how dangerous it was to read into them too much. Kara hoped she'd be lucky enough to have to worry about that one day. However, her own insecurities didn't detract from sharing in Alex's joy on her 18th birthday when _A_ _nyone ever tell you all you feds sound the same? It's like you all watch the same bad movies together at Quantico_ appears scrawled across half her sister's calf in a thick band of text. 

Kara doesn't miss the way Eliza and Jeremiah's heart rates spike when they read the word _feds._ "I promise not to look into it. I'll live my life and my soulmate will live his", Alex announced, unperturbed. "That way, we'll have so many stories to share when we meet."

"Of course, honey. We support whatever you want to pursue in the future." Eliza responds, and that's the last time it's discussed. In front of Alex and Kara, at least.

A couple years later it's her turn. Her friends at school are getting their marks one by one and concocting wild theories about how they'll meet their soulmates. Kara promises herself she won't get excited and talks briefly with Eliza about what to tell her friends if she doesn't end up getting one. A generic greeting in a private spot. It's not uncommon. She counts down the days with bated breath until she's shaking Alex awake at 3am and dragging her to stand outside the bathroom while she checks. Nothing is immediately visible until she lifts her shirt and turns in the mirror, catching sight of a tiny patch of black text on the small of her lower back.

Her delighted squeal tells Alex everything she needs to know.

She can't quite read it at her current angle, so she whips open the door to a now wide awake Alex, before turning and lifting her shirt again.

"What is it? What does it say?" 

Alex was grinning just as widely as she was, but Kara can practically feel the joy fall from her face as she takes in the words. The silence is unbearable and Kara is considering x-raying through her own body to read the words when-

"It says 'You're Supergirl'. With a capital S."

Kara turns and only needs to lock eyes with her sister for a split second before both are sprinting down the hall to Eliza's room.

Eliza warns them not to jump to conclusions too quickly. "We don't know what will happen in the future. I'm not foolish enough to believe we can hide a part of you forever, or that you won't one day have a group of people whom you trust to give you silly nicknames.", she teases lightly, "We will do what we can to protect you, but you can't jeopardize your safety trying to find your soulmate. Agreed?"

"Agreed." 

Eliza kisses them both on the forehead and sends them back to their room. "Congratulations, Kara, and happy birthday."

"Supergirl, huh? Your future friends better up their nickname game, and fast. At least you're not running around with a cape like Clark. That'd be crazy, right?", Alex whispers into the dark once they're back in bed.

Kara hums in agreement, turning in bed with an odd mixture of elation and trepidation.

Looks like she'd be lying about her mark after all.

\----------

Alex is in danger and Kara can save her. It's as simple as that. Damn the consequences, because if Alex can yell at her about putting herself in danger, at least it means she's alive to do it.

It's everything she imagined it would be. She saves the plane and the glaring lights distort her face just enough to be unrecognizable without her glasses. She's Kara Zor-El again, not a nameless, faceless assistant at CatCo, but a _hero_ , and it make her feel _alive._

She forgets about her soulmark until she sees "Supergirl" plastered on the newest headline, and the pieces click into place. Her soulmate will know _her,_ and she will have nothing to hide from them. It's a glorious feeling. It also means that anyone she tells has a high chance of saying her words.

Unfortunately, she doesn't think of that until _after_ she's hurled herself off a rooftop in front of Winn Schott, and amidst his shocked stuttering it dawns on her. _What if he says them now? Soul marks are the first words you say to each other, but is it different if you have two identities? These are the first words he knows he's saying to Supergirl. To all of me. Is this it?_

"You're-"

_Oh no. Oh no. Not like this. I don't even like him like that! Please don't say it, don't-_

"-you're her!"

And she laughs, in utter relief and sheer excitement, because it feels like the beginning of the rest of her life, and she cannot _wait_ to see what happens next.

"Yup!"

\----------

Okay, so she was wrong. 

Kara may be a superhero now, but superheroes still have bills to pay, and she is still an assistant. 

So it's business as usual, barring the fact that she, on occasion, blurts a subpar excuse and rushes off to save the city.

She is in dire need of better alibis. 

Today, however, may be the day Cat Grant fires her, once and for all. She'd been heading home from work the day before when a rogue alien attacked, leaving her to stow her belongings in a nearby alleyway as she changed. After the altercation, she'd gone to the DEO to get patched up, under Alex's orders. 

"You're literally flying in zig-zags, get yourself to the DEO and don't you dare show your face until you've spent a night under the sun lamps. I'll keep your stuff at my apartment and you can come get it in the morning." It would have been a good plan, except Alex's apartment had been undergoing renovations and she'd moved to a high-rise across the city for the time being.

Kara blearily wakes the next morning (okay, maybe she'd been a little worse for wear than she'd thought) and scrambles off the table when she sees the time. She has just under half an hour to rush across the city for her stuff, get Ms. Grant's latte, and make it back to CatCo. Throwing on a spare set of DEO regulation gear over her supersuit, she takes off across the city, patching Alex into her comms as she does so. 

"Hey Alex, I'm on my way but in a bit of a rush. What's your apartment number again?"

She hears nothing but static for a moment, quickly replaced by Alex's panicked voice on the opposite end of the line. "Shoot, Kara. I'm so sorry, I just got called into an emergency. I have to go, but I'll leave my door unlocked. The building code is 0136, and-"

A sudden burst of static as Alex, presumably, gets into the elevator, throws Kara off-kilter for a moment. When she can hear again, she catches a garbled "-B - old apartment - floor. Hank - have to go. Love you!" And she's gone.

Apartment B on the same floor as her old apartment, Kara assumes. There's no time to second guess herself. She stumbles to a stop in an alley between two apartment complexes, and enters the one she thinks she helped Alex move into last week. The code works, so it must be right. Sprinting up the stairs (maybe she was flying a little, who knows?) she stops in front of apartment 3B and wiggles the handle. The metal looks newly installed, dispelling Kara's doubts of having the right apartment. Alex is exactly the type of person to install new locks for a temporary apartment. With a giant heave, she forces the handle down and freezes when she hears a terrifying crunch. The door swings open, but the handle stays firmly in her grasp.

_Alex is going to kill me._

No time to worry about that. She steps into the dark apartment, hands trailing the wall for the light switch. A voice speaks up from behind her the same moment she flicks on the lights, and she turns, a strangled yelp catching in her throat.

"You're Supergirl." 

A distant part of her recognizes the words, but panic overrides all other thoughts. _She can't know. How do I make her not know?_

 _Answer her, doofus!_ The voice sounds suspiciously like Alex.

"Who's Supergirl? Never heard of her." She punctuates her statement with a forced laugh, mentally facepalming. 

_Not like that!_

She recognizes the words, then, and shoots her head up to meet stunning green eyes. The woman is equally shocked, if her sharp intake of breath is anything to go by.

_I'm going to be so late for work._

\---------- 

Lena may be hungover, but she knows what she heard. Of all her rationals, _denial_ from the girl of steel herself was definitely not on her list. For the first time in years, she truly does not know what to make of this situation. _Supergirl is my soulmate._ She eyes the blonde again. _At least, if she ever owns up to it._ Her shoddy excuse is written across Lena's stomach, and she sees through the lie in an instant.

If there was one thing more pressing than meeting her soulmate, it was being right. "You are! That lock was virtually unbreakable, and you tore it off like cotton!"

A pause. "I thought it was unlocked!"

Lena snorts. She's all but convinced now, but her soulmate's efforts are endearing. "That explains _nothing."_ She can already imagine how much trouble it'll be to keep the secret identity under wraps, and she knows she won't regret a moment of it. _Wow, that was fast._

Everything hits her all at once now. The truth, and the alcohol. She rushes to the bathroom and hovers over the toilet, gagging. For the first time in her life, gentle hands gather her hair behind her neck, and rub comforting circles on her back. 

"I gotta say, I may not be the most aesthetically pleasing, but I didn't think I was _that_ bad." A teasing voice whispers over her shoulder

"Oh shut up, you're beautiful and you know it." Lena groans into the toilet bowl.

The hands stop. And start again. 

"I'm Kara. Kara Danvers."

Lena sits back, accepting the quickly offered damp cloth. "Lena. L-" She doesn't deserve this. Kara is sunshine and strength, and Lena cannot escape her past. Kara doesn't deserve this.

"I know." _Oh._

They sit cross-legged on the bathroom floor, Kara's hands idly tracing the tiles. Lena shifts, getting her attention, and lifts her shirt to reveal her mark. She feels that owes Kara proof, at least.

Lena breaks the silence, whispering words that every fiber of her being wants to keep to herself. 

"If you leave, we can pretend this never happened. I won't hold it against you, I promise." She needs to give Kara an out. Something in her needs this to be true.

And she does. Kara stands, and walks out of the bathroom. Lena's heart breaks right in half. But she hears shifting outside the bathroom, and waits, confused. A moment later, Kara returns, supersuit in her arms. She sits back down, lifting her shirt and twisting so Lena's eyes catch the text on her lower back.

"You have me. All of me.", Kara lays the suit on the floor between them, pushing it towards her. "And that means I'm not going anywhere."

Hope springs in her chest, and she reaches across the suit to lace her fingers through Kara's. They sit in silence, and all feels right with the world.

"We might have to keep this under wraps for a while though-" Kara starts.

Lena nods. It's the least she can do. "Being associated with me would be bad enough. I'll-"

"What? No! I literally could not care less- I mean, not to diminish any of your many, many, accomplishments, multiple awards, pending patents-"

"Breathe-"

"Pam from HR will KILL me if she has to process another D23B cause I've blabbed about my identity again, I'm serious. She won't even need Kryptonite."

Lena laughs, a freeing, slightly hysterical laugh that Kara eventually joins in on. She feels as though a lifelong weight on her shoulders has been lifted, and she's never been happier. She tugs Kara up and out of the bathroom, letting her roam the apartment as she brushes her teeth and rinses her mouth. 

Kara leaves the supersuit sprawled on the bathroom floor, which Lena feels will be a common occurrence, but she can't find it in herself to care. Afterwards, she pulls Kara over to the couch, citing, "I really need a nap, and if you haven't run for the hills by now, then you won't murder me in my sleep."

"Cuddle buddies!" Kara cheers in return, and Lena laughs in a giddy excitement. She eyes the door, where Kara has haphazardly shoved the handle back into the door to fill the hole, and makes a note of Supergirl-proofing the apartment. Security isn't a pressing issue, especially with a superhero by her side for the time being. Which reminds her.

"So _does_ Supergirl have a day job?"

"Oh, shoot!"

Cat Grant is more than accommodating towards Kara's absence when Lena Luthor herself reaches out to apologize for borrowing her assistant and schedules an exclusive. 

**Author's Note:**

> just call me dr. doofenshmirtz, cause i spent way too long on backstory whoops  
> there were so many little parts i couldnt fit in here, i may rewrite this in the near future. a tiny part of me is also debating making this NOT a oneshot so we'll see 
> 
> kudos and comments validate me :)


End file.
